City to Seek Consultant for Future Parks and Rec Upgrades

The Manhattan City Commission authorized City Administration to seek a consultant to evaluate and recommend improvements to Parks and Recreation facilities around town.

“City Park, Cico Park, Anneberg Park, this list includes a variety of different fields and parks around town,” said Eddie Eastes, Manhattan’s parks and recreation director. “I just want you to understand we’ll be wanting to look at a large number of sports facilities, both indoor and outdoor.”

Financing the project will be a serious challenge. According to Eastes, installing artificial playing surfaces at all of the sporting facilities in town could by itself cost the City 20 million dollars. As the quarter-cent sales tax sunsets in 2018, several of the Commissioners eye that time period as an opportunity to bring a new improvement package to the public.

“How big a project are we going to be talking about? How much funding is going to be needed? What’s the community comfortable with?” posed Eastes. “It’s going to have to prioritized out and vetted by the community.”

Depending on how funding sources and how the City decides to interpret the consultant’s recommendations, the project could take five to ten years carry out.

In the mean time, City staff has to find a consultant and that timeline is aggressive. Eastes said he wants a final project plan in front of the Commission for consideration by mid-December.